• Austin American-Statesman, Wired, Business Week, Tuesday, August 18, 2009 10:44 AM

The long-rumored Dell smartphone -- or at least a "proof of concept prototype" of it -- has surfaced in China at the Mini3i show in Beijing, Kirk Ladendorf reports straightforwardly in the company's hometown newspaper. It was unveiled by China Mobile Communications, which has 450 million subscribers.

Dell spokesman Matt Parretta acknowledges that the company is indeed developing a mobile product for China Mobile, but he declines to say whether that device will closely resemble the smartphone that was on display Monday, Ladendorf writes.

Let's hope that it doesn't, Priya Ganapati implies in Wired, if the first blurry pictures are any indication of what's to come. "From what little we can see ... we are not impressed," Ganapati writes. "If this is indeed the form factor and design, it seems two years too late to the party."

The headline on Peter Burrows' blog in Business Week is even more devastating. It reads: "Dell's Cell Phone Strategy: Off To A Fizzling Start." The phone will only work on 2G networks, he says, and the low-key introduction in China was hardly the stuff of which breakthrough products are born. "It seems Dell has chosen the path of least resistance rather than do something really differentiated," Burrows writes .

Read the whole story at Austin American-Statesman, Wired, Business Week »